Riverside Cafe II — Restaurant in Oak Harbor

It actually took me nearly a week to write this review because my first few attempts were too emotionally charged. I visited this restaurant on Sunday 08/12 with my boyfriend and another couple, and we should have taken the animosity we received from the entire restaurant more seriously & exited as quickly as we entered. I can’t even give them the grace of saying it was like they’d never seen black people before; clearly they had and CLEARLY they wanted to make it known that our men were not welcome. Multiple tables would not stop staring at our table, making direct eye contact with my boyfriend as he was facing toward the restaurant. One man even tapped his young son on the shoulder & redirected his gaze so both father and son were shooting daggers our direction. The restaurant staff witnessed this and did absolutely nothing. We decided of course to ignore this and just enjoy our meal. Our boys brought their appetites, and each ordered about 3 entrees whereas myself & the other female ordered the pancake breakfast & huevos rancheros, respectively. After about 40 minutes the boys’ meals arrived first and in addition to being disappointing (the corned beef hash had obviously come from a can and the “steak” was a glorified hockey puck basted in some A1), they were all messed up. Wrong pancakes, missing pancakes, wrong omelette. We pointed out the errors & sent the messed up food back, which was remade & delivered before I or the other girl in our group received our food. The omelette was STILL wrong & at this point we start to think everything is intentional, as we can see the kitchen staff member watching us and laughing through the kitchen doorway. Our waitress did not notice the missing food, so we had to bring it to her attention. She realized she had never ordered our entrees, and as we needed to catch a ferry (and had honestly lost our appetites) we told her not to worry & there was no need to fire the missing orders, we would just take our check. Now at this point we kind of expected that the check would reflect the service we received… nope. Not only were we charged for everything in full, but we had even been charged for the extra mimosa that our waitress acknowledged had been her mistake. When our waitress came back around, my boyfriend’s friend calmly said, verbatim, “I’d like to talk about our bill.” Our waitress BURST into tears and told us she was sorry for all her mistakes as she was a single mom and her mom has breast cancer, so she had “a lot on her mind.” We didn’t even get another word in edgewise, as she immediately RAN away from our table & into the back employee area. The boys dropped their forks at that point, any remaining appetite they had was long gone. Mind you, this whole time there’s another waitress & the man we had seen in the kitchen standing there watching everything, neither of whom did a damn thing. We had a ferry to catch, so the boys just bit the bullet and left cash for the tab and tip. We got about halfway to the car when we realized that our tabs had been $60 and $70, which seemed crazy expensive for what we received & we wondered if we had been charged for the meals that never came out. The boys walked calmly back into the restaurant and asked to see their bills again, AND THE MAN FROM THE KITCHEN HAD THE AUDACITY TO GESTURE TOWARD MY BOYFRIEND AND SAY LOUDLY ENOUGH TO GATHER THE ATTENTION OF THE ENTIRE RESTAURANT: “HE LOOKS LIKE HE WANTS TO KILL SOMEBODY!” Seeing that the staff wanted only to escalate the situation & not rectify it, we left, having not even paid but overpaid for a meal that was horrible start to finish. I hate to discredit our waitress’ situation but based on how the rest of the staff handled the incident, I can’t help but feel like we...

We visited on July 31,2023 and I've never had service as bad as it was that day. (Yes, I realize it's been a week since we were there). It was not busy when we got there and there was two servers. I ordered a daiquiri and got a Sangria. We ordered Mozzarella sticks and wings, only to be told Just before getting them they were out of marinara sauce, giving us little choice on picking something else. We placed our order while waiting and again 2 min before our food should have showed, one meal included mushrooms, and guess what, they were out of mushrooms. Again, on the fly pick another ingredient. When the food finally showed, after tables who came in 5-10 min before us were served, my eggs Benedict was completely overcooked that came with Prime rib meat. The Little meat that did come was tough and chewy. I ended up just eating appetizers. The chosen side for the cheeseburger that was ordered were onion rings that had a total of 7, were soaked in oil and pretty much unedible.

The manager was supposedly "notified" about our order and the problems but never came to talk to us.

The server forgot 2 drinks and had to run back to get them. We tried being patient and give benefit of doubt but with a $100 meal, there was a lack of quality, service and all around atmosphere.

Not trying to be a "Karen", these are just simple facts.

Definitely puts a damper...

My family and I have been here a few times now, always for breakfast before today. Today we had lunch there. For months I have been looking for a great cheeseburger. Down on the south end, Bailey's Corner makes one of the absolutely greatest cheeseburgers on the planet. I've tried so many other places on the island and have been disappointed. Today we went to the Riverside Café and had one of the best cheeseburgers with fries I have ever had.

I finally found a place that will cook my hamburger rare or medium rare and not turn it into a hockey puck. The cook at Riverside Café today did a great job. The bun was great, the produce was great, and most importantly, the cook cooked quality beef to exactly the right medium-rare level.

But.... The real star of the show were the hand-cut french fries. These were literally the best french fries I've ever had anywhere in my life. They are unbelievably thick and cooked perfectly. I'm sure they are double-fried or they wouldn't be this perfect.

The service was also amazing. The young lady who took our order was a joy...